frustrated by kindergarden curriculum, learns to write on her own. Births The Callus.

orthopedic shoes

First Great Journey: gets to school alone at 7 yo, across highway & suspension bridge. Gets in Trouble

publishes first creative non-fictional essay

First typewriter. Writes first novel

at 11 yo,

200 pages

moves to the US. Dodges ESL

first book review on Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Accused of plagiarism because writing is viewed as beyond her skill level. Vindicated.

publishes first feature piece on school newspaper. Subject: immigration

confronts first bully

Writes novella. Discovers sci-fi is not considered Literature

Larissa was born in Brazil in a plateau of volcanic earth 932 meters above sea level, and became an instant legend by arriving in this world already owning 300 pairs of knitted booties. She learned to write on her own before the age of six, enabling her to develop a unique pen-wielding style (known privately as “fist-of-the-monkey”) whose legacy is a stumpy callus she believes can predict solar flares and other space phenomena. She first published in a three-city contest for an essay about the ageist oppression of being a tween, penned at the ripe age of ten. Around that time she sat before her typewriter and began to write a long novel featuring a young female character at odds with social forces (surprise) who - despite deep and semi-precocious existential angst - persists in spunky fashion through adventures good, bad and ugly.

After immigrating to New York and mastering the art of subway-surfing and dead reckoning through the shoals and fjords of the New York public library, she began to write in yet another language, following the great models at her disposal: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, a slew of Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels, and Shakespeare. These melded nicely with other (mostly age inappropriate) early influences read in the Portuguese such as Hamlet, Stephen King and Erica Jong, Brazilian songs and telenovelas, and her older sister’s diary. This syncretism of styles led her to the hallowed halls of Creative Writing, where she was given reign to write prose dodgy in nature couched in paragraphs of very loose syntax.

Larissa is a lover of oceans, horses and belugas, travels through countries with creative plumbing, and is adamantly opposed to the bombing of the moon. She lives with a manuscript, a camera, and a 20 lb bag of rice.

She’s the recipient of a 2013 Fulbright Fellowship to Brazil by the U.S. Department of State, a 2013 Fellowship to Instituto Sacatar in Brazil, 2012 Antarctic Artists and Writers Grant from the National Science Foundation, 2012 Radclyffe Hall fellowship and Writer-in-Residence from Hedgebrook Foundation, a 2012 SLS fellowship for Breaking English, a 2011 4Culture grant, a 2011 Jack Straw Foundation Writers Program fellowship, a 2010 GAP Grant from Artist Trust, a City Artist award from the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, the James Hall Prize for Fiction, a University Fellowship from Temple University, and the Phyllis Jones Memorial Award. In addition to being a 2012 SLS creative non-fiction contest finalist, 2011 UNO Press Writing Contest finalist, and a 2011 Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center Visiting Scholar, she is also the recipient of the kindness and generosity of countless individuals (thank you).